IPC Survey Reveals Electronics Industry Unprepared for REACH
August 4, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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More than 40% of manufacturing and purchasing personnel do not understand the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation as it affects their companies, according to a survey by IPC - Association Connecting Electronics Industries.
The same is true for nearly one-third of senior management and 29% of engineering personnel, according to the survey.
Even 28% of environment, health and safety personnel do not understand REACH's impact.
IPC's REACH Preparedness in the North American and European Interconnect Industry survey reveals that with an approaching deadline for preregistration of substances, only 18.3% of companies identified and/or inventoried all substances in their products.
In addition only 60.5% of chemical supplier respondents are planning to register or pre-register substances at all, according to the survey.
In contrast to the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS), which covers a narrow scope of substances in electronic products encompassing about 100 different chemicals, REACH covers substances in nearly all applications, totaling about 30,000 unique chemicals, according to IPC.
While RoHS can address entire classes of substances at a time, REACH addresses them each individually. Where RoHS requires supplier-to-customer communications, the REACH regulation makes bidirectional communication throughout the supply chain imperative, said IPC.
IPC launched a REACH Supply Chain Task Force to help companies address the impacts of REACH.
IPC's REACH preparedness survey is available at www.ipc.org/REACHsurveyreport.
Source: IPC Association Connecting Electronics Industries.